I have a little white box, somewhere among my personal possessions in the attic. It once contained a medal that I had obtained during my time in the church youth organisation, though I can't remember exactly why I received it. Anyway, it's not in the box now and I really don't have any idea where it resides, possibly still in the house where my parents lived. But the box is not empty for it contains a little piece of history, or more correctly, a little piece of my wife. Now before anyone reaches for the phone and dials their local detective with grisly accusations of severed fingers or the like, let me assure you that it is not so dramatic or horrifying and is indeed nothing more than a curl of hair. It was a watershed for wife at the time, who was then not even at fiancee stage but she had reached a decision that the long hair she had groomed for so many years, she would soon have no longer, in fact she would have it shorter, but just as a token of remembrance of former days, she gave me one single curl to keep and the only box I owned which would be just right to store it, was quickly emptied of its shiny contents and replaced with a living piece of history, which of course was no longer alive. Some years later, after we had officially become husband and wife and had started a family, our first son grew the most beautiful blond curls and when we eventually plucked up the courage to take him for his first haircut, wife kept one of his locks as a keepsake and it too occupies a place in our personal possessions. I noticed on a picture that mum had of me, when I was a toddler and had similar curls that made me reminiscent of Charlie Drake, the comedian, a small lock of blond hair inside a little plastic bag and attached to the front. Most people have keepsakes that remind them of a particular time or event in their lives or even a certain person. We always kept the little plastic blue tags that were attached to each of the boys when they were born, recording the time of birth and the weight and, like most parents, have school books and other mementoes of their early years. If I searched the attic, I could easily find books, toys, magazines, ornaments, records and little bits and pieces that are all there because each carries a different memory that is, in truth, my living history. Like the old Liverpool programme of a match against Spurs in 1973, on the morning of the Grand National, or the white Bible that was given to us on our wedding day, or my student's union card where the hairstyle in the picture was a little too well blow dried. Or maybe the little hand-held slide viewer that you held up to the light and through which we used to look at the twenty or so slides showing the opening of our church manse in the late fifties. For many females it may be a piece of jewellery handed down by a parent, grandparent or great aunt, why it might even be a wedding dress or, as in wife's family, a christening robe, but such keepsakes have more than just sentimental value.
That's why, the glasses and open Bible that sit in our upstairs lounge, are not simply there to remind me of a loving mother but to illustrate what was really important in her life. For her Bible was always open, often annotated in her own writing and the wrinkles on each page showed that she knew it well. And yet it was not the Bible that I remember for much of her life, during my primary and teenage years but the original had been read and written on so much that the pages no longer held together sufficiently well with sellotape. And the glasses? They just remind me of one who had a clear view of her Lord but still wanted to see more of Him in her own life and in the lives of her family. How I have thought about that over these past days as her two grandsons prepare for short and long term mission work and how I know she wouldn't have needed those spectacles to see the work that God has done in their lives and the blessings that he has 'bestowed' on her loved ones. So I can really identify with that verse in Psalm 100 which says, 'For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.'
Of course the greatest keepsake is in my head. It is a picture of empty cross and an empty grave that tells me all I need to know, that without the past, there is no future and when my future is in God's hands my past is firmly where it belongs. Not so much a keepsake, only a memory
